I can't believe that I'm writing one of these again already. This year did not feature the travel and habit variety that last year did, which I assume is why it felt shorter. Did it measure up to the last two years? Definitely not, given this year's challenges, but it was not without its high points. I'll run through the usual subheadings...
Last year was so terrible that the bar for this year was awfully low. Ad revenue hit rock bottom. Almost any change would be an improvement. A few useful things happened though, starting with Google going to a CPM only model. That means if an ad is displayed, you get paid for it even if no one clicks on it. The other thing is that Google is now legally a monopolist, and there will be some kind of remedy that's supposed to help publishers like me.
The change in revenue started to ramp up in April, and it was a slow burn. In the end, revenue for the year was up 18%. That's an improvement, but I still took a loss most months. The traffic changes were completely weird. CoasterBuzz was up another 12% in users and page views, on top of last year's 35%. PointBuzz, on the other hand, was up 40% in users, but down a staggering 19% in page views. The timing couldn't be worse, as CPM's finally started exceeding a dollar. The math isn't hard for PointBuzz. It's a Cedar Point fan site, and the park's new ride ended up being closed basically all year. I think people just got bored with the situation. It was a strange year.
Operating cost didn't really change, but revenue really needs to get better next year. The shortfall isn't killing me, but I miss the days when it paid my mortgage, and on less traffic.
I'm hitting a new milestone in a few weeks, reaching three years at the same job. I won't write about all of that again, but it's new territory for me. Tech is not a great place for job security unless you're willing to work at a stodgy old company like IBM. But this one has generally gone pretty well, and I enjoy working with the people that I do. This year has been more challenging, in part because my boss left the company, and the follow up wasn't there for very long either. I get pulled into a lot of things not in my immediate sphere of influence, so it helps to have someone a level up who can help with that. But my team has just delivered on things over and over, and I'm so proud of them.
Meanwhile, I think I've come to realize that retirement isn't what I used to think it was. If I stopped working, I think I would be bored to tears. Instead, I'm viewing that stage of life as the ability to still work, but with little risk to do specific things that I'd like to try without having to rely on it to maintain a certain lifestyle. I've written a lot in the last two years about my desire to get into lighting, and I made a lot of progress on that this year. In April I finally scored a grandMA3 lighting console, and I break it out in spurts trying new things and visualizing basics with the six real lights I have on a truss in my office (because who doesn't do that?). Just a few weeks ago, I also got a dongle to unlock the software-only ETC EOS platform, which is used more in theater situations, where as MA3 is more concert oriented. And if all that weren't enough, I'm also trying to learn Vectorworks, a CAD program that does lighting and stage design.
The lighting pursuit could lead to a fun third act, or it could just be something I enjoy doing. It doesn't matter which. It fits with my maker desires.
Oh, and a significant sidebar on the topic, Diana's career turned to full-time at Dr. Phillips Center. She's worked there since it opened, ten years ago, but only part-time. This is the first time she's been full-time since before Simon was born. It makes me happy to see her happy in that special place.
Let me just get this out of the way, so I can hang my head in shame. I didn't work on my documentary at all. Not even once this year. I'm pretty sure this is the most self-inflicted harm I've engaged in, because it doesn't feel good at all. All of the footage is now a year and a half old, and it's just sitting there on my hard drive. I feel extra bad about it when I think about the money I spent on production thus far. I understand the reasons. It started with not getting the things that I wanted to shoot last year. Despite working the network and cold-contacting various people and companies relative to things I wanted to include, I just kept getting blown off. That sucked.
But I also was deeply dissatisfied with some of the things I did capture, and it wasn't even what I'd call a lot of it. So then I got overwhelmed with what I had, layered in work and home life, and I just couldn't start editing. There's also a mind block around music, which I think it needs, but can't accept that I have to cut the thing before I can even approach someone to write something. If I could sit over someone's shoulder as they edited, like a director in the traditional sense, I suspect little of this would be an issue. Anyway, hopefully next year I get somewhere with it.
Meanwhile, this was not a big year for making overall. I did just barely squeak in a POP Forums release, but it's not a big feature-packed thing. It's mostly performance and bug stuff. I even made some tweaks to my personal music service, MLocker, implementing dark mode. Most of this happened just a few weeks ago. I want a new open source project to dive into, or even a product that someone might buy, but I don't have a lot of ideas. I did write some code to control lighting, the basics of which were not as hard as I expected. It was the subject of my Code Camp talk this year.
The lighting was a big part of my making year, as it came in waves. My MA3 command wing came in April, after a very long eight months of waiting (at least saving for it was easy!). My collection of moving lights totals six, and they're sitting on a truss in my office, as one does. You can't do a ton with six lights, but it's a good number for the purpose of understanding how to create certain looks. I recently decided, with a Black Friday deal, to subscribe to Vectorworks, which is CAD software that does lighting and stage design. With that, I can design more complicated things, import it into MA3 and see what I can do virtually. I also got the student kit for ETC's EOS software, since I have a student in the house, and I want to learn how to use that, even if I don't have the control surface. I'm hoping Simon will get into it as well, since it's what they have at school.
I'm still chasing high-ish triglycerides, but against my doctor's orders, opted not to try yet another drug to moderate it. I don't think that treating the symptom is going to work, and it has to be the underlying cause. I can correlate with data low triglycerides with high activity, because duh, that's how the body works. But psychologically I struggle to be consistent. I hate, loathe and detest exercise for the sake of exercise. I do go in spurts walking a few miles in the morning, but I'm inconsistent.
I do realize though that otherwise, age really isn't taking a huge toll on me, at least not yet. I feel my knees hurt a little in certain weather. My eye sight this year really doesn't like things closer than 20 inches these days, but it's really interesting how fatigue plays a huge factor in that. When my eyes are well rested, things near to my face (i.e., my phone) are so sharp. I recognize this only because they're not when I'm tired. I could probably use reading glasses, but I'm stubborn. I have no issue with any vision beyond that minimum depth of field, fortunately.
This was the year that medical marijuana entered my scene, and it has been a game changer. Diana started before me to help with some chronic pain issues. I was looking for some way to deal with insomnia, which I'm sure was brought on by anxiety. Sometimes, when I was really exhausted, I'd take lorazepam, for which I had a very small allotment of the previous year. That stuff is nasty addictive, potentially, so I wasn't crazy about it. Edible weed does the trick. I do 5mg of THC gummies, which makes me tired, slows my brain just a little, but doesn't get me "high." I've never taken enough to get high, but trying to land the right dose, I didn't like the way that 10mg made me feel.
That said, if we're being real, med weed is still a giant scale experiment, since it's hard to do the right scientific research given its federal classification. I wouldn't describe this as a worry, but regular pharmaceuticals are deeply understood before they're put on the market. THC lacks the same rigor in terms of treatment for any specific thing, or risk of side effects. I am very thankful for the relief it offers in sleep, but this has gotta change.
The mental health situation got better in a lot of ways. I still take bupropion for depression, and it's still working. I feel like I'm responding to anxiety in positive ways, remembering to listen to some music, finding a quiet moment, just being present. I don't respond to toxic behavior from those who direct it toward me. I have reasons to like myself without it being vain. I'm even getting to a point where I don't feel bad about not being able to improve bad things outside of the scope of my influence. And let's face it, a lot of bad things happened this year.
My online engagement has dramatically been reduced, and I'm better for it. I don't doomscroll anymore. I'm kind of a write-only guy, mostly, using it as a diary of sorts. I read enough news to be informed, but don't labor over it. I walk away from, or limit participation in, conversation that I would once insist I had to be in. Indeed I've reached a point where I want to feel well more than I want to feel right, and that's kind of a breakthrough.
Also, I spent a lot of time seeking validation this year. I can't even tell you how many times I wrote about it. I've gone most of my life not really requiring it, since I got so little of it growing up and in college. But with all of the reflection the last few years, between middle age and the ASD and ADHD diagnoses, taking inventory in my life reveals that I've accomplished a lot. Would it hurt to get a high-five for it now and then? It's a weird feeling, because this doesn't come out of insecurity. Quite the opposite, it comes from the confidence that I'm worth it, and dammit, why don't you recognize it? (You, as in the royal you, not anyone in particular.)
Parenting this year has been very hard. We survived middle school, in no small part because his principal was awesome. High school has been extra challenging, however, and the idea that we've got at least three and a half more years of it is not a great feeling. Also throw in the teenage aspect, which involves acne, shaving and liking girls but not sure how to express that. Raising any kid at that age I'm sure is difficult, but add ADHD and ASD, and there's another layer of complexity.
We did have Simon evaluated more deeply for more quantifiable developmental measures, which I think is useful for the school to some extent. Not really big surprises there, but he's in the bottom percentile for processing speed, but at the top for visual spacial perception. He was also above average in the working memory category. Combined, these put him in the average band of intelligence, which is what I would expect. The problem is that the processing speed is a drag on learning in a typical academic environment, and that's really hard to navigate. Intelligence tests are designed to be relatively stable over time (my IQ tests came out the same at age 20 and 48), but developmental delays mean there's still a little room to grow.
There has been some growth on my end. I often see similarities in the way he operates in the world to my own childhood experience, but I'm learning that there are limitations to those similarities. Still, I find myself empathetic a lot of the time because I get his social struggles in a non-trivial way. His academic challenges are similar in some ways, but not others. For example, we both struggle with engagement by way of ADHD, and I totally get that. On the other hand, I had an almost instinctive way of writing and understanding science, even if my grades didn't reflect it. He finds it hard to turn thoughts into text. This made me pretty useless at helping with parts of speech, because I never understood what they were by name, I just "got" the right structure.
I'm also getting better about yelling at him, which is probably because I've had more practice with Diana working more evenings. Still, he pushes my buttons because he wants to litigate everything that you tell him, and that's just a teenager thing, regardless of neurological profile. We hired a tutor for math, which is good because I don't understand it, and I don't react well to him not engaging.
I am fairly honest about my shortcomings at parenting, but I have to remind myself that I am deeply invested in his success and happiness, and most importantly, I am present. I'm doing my best to be more positive, but the rest of life takes a lot out of me too. That's an explanation, not an excuse. I can do better.
Our travel was not nearly as cool as our Northern Europe trip last year, and I kind of regret not going back. We definitely want to get more quality time in the UK, Norway and Denmark, and we're open to a Mediterranean cruise as well. That really was an awesome way to nation sample without losing a lot of daylight hours to travel, not to mention a great opportunity to make new friends (even if most were from our own neighborhood).
We did end up doing four cruises this year, which hasn't happened since 2019. We did the 3-night Wish itinerary to Nassau and Castaway Cay three times, one of them concierge for our anniversary. In June we made our third trip on the Fantasy for the inaugural visit to Disney's second island location at the tip of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, at what Disney calls Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point. Really rolls off the tongue. We did that one with the Rogers family, which I've known for years and encountered a few times in the parks, but it was a solid outing. Working the network, we were able to get a cabana on one of the two new island days, and we shared the cost. It was a really fantastic week, and second only to the Europe cruise last year. The new island location is superior in almost every way, with coral reefs that you can walk up to, and actual waves and rays swimming around.
Spring break brought us to Washington, DC, a place that I somehow managed to never visit. My friend Ken works for the feds there, with an awesome condo half way between the Capitol and the White House. Having a local tour guide is fantastic. In fact, he was flying in from a work thing at the same time that we arrived, and he had pre-paid metro cards. We stayed in a fabulous hotel in the middle of everything that used to be a bank. We met up with a former Orlando theater friend while walking among peak cherry blossom foliage. The highlight, to me, was getting to visit the White House though. What an historic, sacred place in our nation. You've seen it hundreds of times on TV, and it's exactly that. How many historical photos are there of that place? Granted, you don't get to see the Oval Office, but I remember Simon standing in the main doorway to the East Room, and thinking of the various addresses that various presidents gave standing in that spot, especially Obama announcing the bin Laden raid.
I played a lot of video games this year. A. Lot. I'm unapologetic about it though. I felt like I needed the escapism and something to keep the anxiety away. I started the year playing Against The Storm almost obsessively. I played through two of the big Bethesda RPG's, Fallout 4 and Starfield. After loving the TV show, I played through The Last of Us and was really impressed, even having seen the show first. We're ending the year with the recent release of Planet Coaster 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
This has been a weird year for shows. The second half of last season was a mixed bag, with Moulin Rouge being a great spectacle but sounding like a teenage remix. The shockingly amazing surprise was Jagged Little Pill. You'd think those Alanis songs were always in that show. It was so good that I scored a solo ticket to see it a second time while Diana was working. Mrs. Doubtfire was better than I expected, and we bailed on Peter Pan at intermission. Clue was entertaining, and one of the rare non-musicals. This season is full of jukebox shows. So far we've had Girl From The North Country, which is Bob Dylan stuff, and it was meh. Book of Mormon was hilarious as always, and that was the third time I've seen it. The Cher Show was entertaining, but it's Cher. Some Like It Hot saved the end of this year.
There were other shows too, the highlight being Lindsey Stirling. She does a proper rock and roll show, only with a violin, dancing and aerial acrobatics. I'm a huge fan now. We also saw the Cleveland Orchestra in our beloved Steinmetz Hall, as well as the Orlando Philharmonic. The big tenth anniversary donor event featured Katherine McPhee Foster, which was awesome.
It was a much better year for music, but you can read more about that in the playlist post.
I am very proud of myself for sticking to the retirement saving plan again this year. I contributed the max to my 401k at work, max to my Roth IRA (and Diana's), and made substantial ad hoc deposits to my brokerage account. If I can keep this up for seven more years, I can "retire" early. Though as I explained above, retirement is less about not working than it is choosing to work on only the things you want.
We annoyingly had two big hits this year where we had to dip into the savings jar. The first was the time that a Disney maintenance truck tagged Diana's car in a totally empty part of the Epcot parking lot. The Model 3 was six years old, but mechanically that car could have lasted for who knows how many more years. The battery was still tip top after 62k miles, the brakes were still essentially new, and most importantly, it was almost paid off. So that was a double hit, because we had to shell out a down payment for a new car, and have a payment for the next five years at a shitty interest rate. Also, I need to call Progressive and figure out if we have to sue Disney to get the deductible back. What we will not do is sign the check they sent for $40 to cover an extra rental day, which would force us to release them from further liability and adhere to an NDA.
Just this month, we almost got away with not having a single repair to our HVAC this year, but alas, the upstairs system failed again. The repair would have only been $250, but we've spent thousands in just seven years, and that's not counting the warranty repairs. Granted, it did get hit by lightning, twice, but this Lennox junk is done. We decided to replace the whole system. Fortunately there's a $2,000 tax credit for the energy efficiency, but it's still money no one wants to spend.
Perhaps the biggest change in our situation was that Diana went back to work full-time, for the first time since before Simon was born. It wasn't because part-time plus my job wasn't enough, she just really wanted to go back to work at a venue that we love. It has made it much easier to reach those savings goals.
Let me first stay that I remain optimistic about many things, because, perhaps naively, I don't know what else to do. And there are some bright spots here and there. Sustainable energy is starting to happen in a meaningful way, if not to the extent necessary to respond to climate change. In my area, it might be accurate to say that one in ten cars, maybe one in 15, are electric. A lot of people are finally seeing the toxicity of social media, which isn't really social, and putting their phones down.
But this is also the year where I've accepted that I live in a racist nation. The election cemented that. I was brought up to believe that lying was bad, that character mattered, but the same generation that taught me that says by their actions that these things don't matter. Whether intended or not, less than a third of Americans weighed in to say that it's OK to hurt people that are not like you. I don't know how to explain to my kid, who has been bullied, how a bully becomes president. If a teenage kid with autism can tell you right from wrong, you'd think grown-ass neurotypical adults could. I've seen all of the "ism's" my whole life, starting as a child in an inner-city school, and constantly felt like it can only get better. Maybe it has in some ways, but it feels like we're backsliding, and it makes me sad and angry. What a weird thing, to be sad and angry about people who are hateful and angry. It's a vicious cycle. I long for the days that, regardless of party, we could expect a person with some shred of integrity and dedication to public service to occupy the White House.
What I can do is double down on the things that I can do. I can donate time and money to things, help in creating joy in whatever ways my talents allow, be a cheerleader for people I want to succeed. It's all I've got.
I think in the general sense, yes, but it felt like there was an awful lot of struggle. I remember sitting in more than one show this year, watching actors sing and dance on stage, feeling the deep sense of escape, with the thought creeping in that if I feel like I need to escape, at some point that becomes a problem. It has taken every bit of will to be on the right side of that feeling and retain perspective.
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